We are in here again! I and WD salute you all our earthling friends! As you can guess today, our traditional new year song is from Iron Maiden again; Up to Irons! 😉
I think this one will be more suitable for the soul of year of 2019. Like in its lyrics:
“Have you ever felt the future is the past, but you dont know how…?
A reflected dream of a captured time, is it really now, is it really happening?”
I think when we live in 2019, we will feel that “all these happened before, and it is happenning again.” Maybe we have read similar things in history. Even if the names change, the events are not too much different. I think humans are not getting smarter years by years. They do make same mistakes. I hope everyone can find own way in the oncoming cloudy future. And while doing this, I am sure that friends and the loved ones will give the strength to you when you need it! Because if there is a hope, this hope will come with accompanying of theirs! Whatever it will come, you still don’t lose our hopes in the dream mirrors. 😉
Like WD. 🙂 I have read his yearly horoscope for 2019 to WD. His sign is Taurus. This was written on his horoscope:
“This year, the dinner events which are open buffet in foreign languages, are not expecting to you. People are in crisis now. Even one olive piece is being calculated. We recommend you diet. It is in your hand to change the food pyramid completely.”
His reaction has been like that: “I do not like open buffets already. My choice is always elegant dinners with my lady dog lover privately. If I would go to open buffet, how I can close to my lover in that crowd!”
As you can see he never loses his hope.:))
By the way between us my earthling friends, that horoscope comment that I have read to WD was from Zaytung. Haha! If he realizes…
-Damn you Migo! So, you did read my horoscope from Zaytung! I knew that something was wrong on it! And you are telling these to my beloved followers, my dear friends! How dare you!
-Calm down WD. It was just a joke. 😎
-I cannot be calm down Migo! Do you know how much I was ruined when I thought that I have lost all invites for open buffets, all good foods! My sorrow is not a joke!
-Okay. Do you want to listen what your real horoscope sign tells?
-NO! I do not want! You can foolish me again!
-I will not do in this time.
-No Migo, you broke my heart!
-Are you sure you don’t want to listen. It is really good things are written. Even it says that a new love could be seen in 2019 for you, a special one.
-Really?
-Yes, really.
-All right, just in this time, you can read. But only this time. I am still angry, but I can forgive you just in this time. It’s not because of that I’m curious about my new love; it is because of I am a dog with very big heart!
-Okay I am reading…
🙂
And, WD and I wish to all you healty (as mind and body:)), peaceful and happy new year with your loved ones!
See you next year 😉
Mutlu Yeni Yıllar! — С новым годом! — Happy New Year!
Ladies and gentlemen, this match is scheduled for one fall and for the Holy Churches Championship! Introducing first from Russian Orthodox Church on the red corner, in heavyweight. And, introducing the challenger from Ukranian Orthodox Church on blue corner, in middleweight! Please welcome both! Are you ready for Holy Glory!
The incident occurred in 06.12.2018 in the village of Vinyantintsi in the Ternopil Province of Ukraine. The fight broke out when “Archbishop” Tikhon Petranyuk of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church entered the church during a service to read out a decree banning the “priest” John Boikoof the Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate from serving. The clergymen who cannot share the church have fought and punched with each other in the front of the citizens who came for worship to the church.
The Archbishop who began to read the decision about the Priest Boikoof by entering the church even though the people closed the door on him, faced the reaction of the people. When the Archbishop’s wand was broken, the trouble was stired up in church. The priest who had concussion of the brain and fractured his rib was taken to hospital.
The incident took place before the unifying council meeting in Ukraine on December 15th, with representatives of all Orthodox churches.
When you have read the first lines of this post, you have thought probably “Our extraterrestrial friend Migo is making humor again.” 😃 But I did not make my earthling friends; when everything was so clear, it was not need to, haha! While there is a fight, a broken rib and brain concussion in the middle, the scenes are not different from boxing ring. Even we can say that boxing ring is more fair than these. Already we all know that after the last moment in the boxing ring, there is a winner of the match. But in this events, so in the churches’ events there are many politic conflicts and unknown things in background. We can only filter some of them in our views. However, we can still use the similarities to evaluate the fighting of churches in terms of boxing.
“This year, perhaps the largest crisis of the Orthodox world, the Patriarchate of Constantinople (also known as Fener Greek Patriarchate in Istanbul) and the Moscow Patriarchate, is expected to break out. The Patriarchate of Constantinople is preparing to officially recognize the Kiev Patriarchate, which was founded by nationalist monks who left the Russian Church in Ukraine, which has great importance by both the Russian administration and the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) by declaring in its own spiritual sphere. In this regard, News were reported suggesting that the United States has actively supported the Patriarchate of Constantinople and nationalist monks in Ukraine. Initially, the Patriarchate of Constantinople was expected to take this decision at the end of July (before the celebration of the 1030th anniversary of the acceptance of the Christianity of the Russians and Ukrainians)…
In orthodox societies, if it is remembered how the church has an important place in the construction of national identity, the people who want to gain independence and the majority of the population of the Orthodox countries are trying to have independent national church before the independent state (like the Bulgarians), it would be understood more clear that the struggle is not an ordinary religious conflict. In a way, this struggle is a matter of tearing Ukraine’s ties with Russia in every sense. On the other hand, there have been severe tensions between the Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Fener Greek Patriarchate) and the Moscow Patriarchate since the Cold War. Recalling that the Moscow Patriarchate implemented policies in parallel to the Kremlin administration, it is understood that this struggle also formed the religious pillar of the US-Russian conflict…”
Patriarch Bartholomew (right) with Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill
September 24, 2018. Istanbul Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Dimitri Bartholomew said on Sept. 23 that he hoped for an independent Ukrainian Church soon “despite the current opposition.”
“I hope that despite the current opposition, the Ukrainian Church gets its independence status, which is their right, soon,” Bartholomew said in a speech he made following the Sunday church service held at the Saint Fokas Orthodox Church in Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighborhood.
Bartholomew said that the Istanbul-based Patriarchate granted independence status initially to the Russian Church in the 16th century and then lastly to the Orthodox churches of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1998, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
He said the Istanbul-based Patriarchate provides spiritual protection and love for these churches, adding they would not be “scared of threats.”
The Ukrainian Church wants to have “ecclesiastic independence” from the Church of Moscow and all of Russia but needs the approval of Bartholomew, since he is recognized as ecumenical by all other Orthodox churches.
The Ukrainian Church is split between a branch whose clerics pledge loyalty to Moscow and one that is overseen by the unrecognized Kiev-based Patriarch Filaret.
The fracture has deepened following a four-year conflict between Kiev and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine and the Russian annexation of Crimea.
Earlier this month, Bartholomew sent two representatives to Ukraine, leading an incensed Russian Orthodox Church to cut ties with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians at an emergency meeting on Sept. 14.
(Additional information: The Patriarchate of Constantinople, also known as Fener Greek Patriarchate in Istanbul, is Ecumenical Patriarchate. It is an honorary priority among the headman and equal Orthodox churches. It tries to achieve the unity of the Orthodox churches. It was equated with the Roman Patriarchate in 451 AD by the decisions of the 4th Ecumenical Council gathered in Kadikoy, Istanbul. The Orthodox Church was separated from the Catholic Church in the 5th century. After the conquest of Istanbul, Fatih Sultan Mehmet, for Gennadios, who was elected as the Patriarch of Constantinople, issued a decree in Turkish and Islamic law, which showed the duties and powers of the patriarch, giving him some privileges. )
As it is understood, whereas it needs to be the Patriarch of Constantinople should be unifying all the orthodox churches, on the other side he is making statements to Ukranian church such as “seperate from Russia, I support you”. I think he wants this merger “under its own roof”. 😎 He could envy the Pope, the spiritual leader of the Catholics? Of course, Pope is almost a movie star! Even he has a profession where he earns a lot of money more than the Hollywood stars in every his steps on the planet. And all the shimmering gigantic outfits! Yeah, that could be jealousy, haha!
14.12.2018. The Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomew, evaluated the decision of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill’s decision to send a Russian priest to serve in the church of the Consulate General of Russia in Istanbul with the following words:
“This concern into the Russian community in Istanbul and Turkey in general and this dilemma, Russian saints church, brother of the Moscow Patriarchate Ecumenical Patriarchate, ie in the direction of cutting ties with it’s mother church, which stems from the extreme decision. We may have different perspectives on the various problems that the Orthodox church deals with. It’s completely human and democratic. However, it is unacceptable to use the interruption of relations as a means of oppression and imposition to make others agree with their views. “I’m sure the Russian sister church will regret this extreme decision.”
According to Sputnik news, Bartholomew, who accused the Russian Orthodox Church of interfering with the works of the Fener Greek Patriarchate, said, “The priest from Moscow was sent to serve in the church at the Consulate General of Russia in Istanbul. It is illegal, because this church is spiritual and belongs to legal Fener Greek Patriarchate”.
He also said the Russians in Turkey not to listen to Moscow Patriarchate, and added, “I am your pastor and your spiritual father in here.”
“-I am your father, not him!” “-No, I am the father of all of you, not him! “-No, no, I am”, “-Nooo, I am,” and goes on like that. 🙂 I think someone needs to make paternity test, and all world can be relief, haha!
December 15, 2018. Ukrainian Orthodox leaders have agreed on the creation of a new national Orthodox church and elected a leader to head that church, a move that Ukraine’s leaders say is vital to the country’s security and independence but could raise tensions further with Moscow.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said 39-year-old Metropolitan Epifaniy of the Kyiv Patriarchate church had been chosen as head of the church by a council, comparing the move to Ukraine’s referendum for independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
“This day will go into history as a sacred day…the day of the final independence from Russia,” Poroshenko told thousands of supporters in central Kyiv on December 15.
“And Ukraine will no longer drink, in the words of Taras Shevchenko, ‘Moscow’s poison from Moscow’s cup,'” he said, quoting the country’s national poet.
Poroshenko said Ukrainians finally had their own Orthodox church.
“What is this church? This is a church without [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. What is this church? This church is without [Russian Orthodox Patriarch] Kirill. What is this church? This is a church without prayers for the Russian authorities and Russian troops, because they kill Ukrainians. But this is a church with God and Ukraine!”
16.12.2018, MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), the only canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine, refuses to recognize the structure created on Saturday in Kiev at the “unification council”, Archpriest Mykolay Danylevych said.
“The schismatics remained schismatics, and the Church remained the Church. It was joyful and gratifying that the bishops, clergy and believers remained loyal to the Church. The Church has manifested its unity. It is regrettable that there were few ones that went into schism, and also that this schism was supported by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. But no matter how hard they tried to proclaim the schism as the Church, and non-canonical as canonical, the Body of the Church of Christ will not accept this, because the structure that was created yesterday was and is an extraneous body that is rejected and not accepted by the Body of the Church,” Archpriest Mykolay Danylevych, the deputy chairman of the UOC-MP Department for External Church Relations (DECR), wrote on Facebook Sunday.
Following the unification council, the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (EOC-MP) also did not recognize its results. Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Onufriy was and remains the legitimate head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, despite the creation of the “new church” in Kiev, spokesman for the EOC-MP Archpriest Daniel Lepisk said.
“Metropolitan Onufriy as he was and remained for us the legitimate head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and in this respect, nothing has changed for us. These ‘churches’ [organizers of the ‘council’] were considered schismatic even before that. From the fact that instead of two old churches they created one new, the essence has not changed,” Lepisk noted.
I do not think so, my earthling friends. These are big issues. Even if the audience of the match is waiting for the result with excitement, this match will take longer. I do not expect any physical conflict on the field until the weather gets warmer and the season terms are better in the region. 🙂 Of course, I don’t think either the parties are going to idle around in the meantime. There will be bargains in the background. They will do what they can corner the opponent. We can assume until that time what will happen in politic future between west and Russia by following churches’ movements. Like “follow the money”, haha!
As an atheist extraterrestrial, religious issues have always been unnecessary to me. But such conflicts like in here are exciting even enough to attract the attention of aliens. And I, like everyone else, wonder when the outcome of the match will be. On the other hand, I suppose this match will continue as long as humanity has left its footprint on this planet. 😎
Haitian refugees being held at Guantanamo’s Camp McCalla on Dec. 31, 1991, three months after the coup d’état against Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Credit: Carol Halebian
After George Herbert Walker Bush died on Nov. 30 at age 94, the mainstream press favorably contrasted him to Donald Trump, portraying the former Republican president as “kinder” and “gentler,” two watchwords from his inaugural speech.
But, Trump’s signature aggressivity towards immigrants is epitomized through extra-territorial interception and imprisonment and separation of families, brutal policies which were, in fact, pioneered by Bush I during the Haitian refugee exodus following the Sep. 30, 1991 coup d’état in Haiti.
A hangar at Guantanamo Naval Base where Haitian refugees were housed on cots in late 1991 through May 1992. Credit: Chris O’Meara/AP
As we saw in this series’ first article, George H.W. Bush’s administration gave manifest and tacit support to dictator Prosper Avril (1988-1990) and to the first coup d’état against democratically-elected Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
As a result of that putsch, tens of thousands of Haitians took to the high seas in small boats, many fleeing for their lives. In the first year after the coup, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted some 38,000 Haitians in international waters.
U.S. interdiction of Haitian refugees had begun in September 1981 under Pres. Ronald Reagan, for whom George H.W. Bush was vice-president. Under the rules laid out by Reagan’s Executive Order 12324 titled “Interdiction of Illegal Aliens,” Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents on board U.S. Coast Guard cutters were supposed to interview and “identify candidates for asylum as political refugees under United States and international law,” explains University of Miami law professor Irwin Stotzky in his new book Send Them Back, about the efforts of crusading lawyers (including himself) on behalf of Haitian refugees during the 1980s.
The screening process was laughable, with interviews which were not private and as short as five minutes, while the snatched-up “boat-people” were often hungry, thirsty, scared, and confused.
Haitians lived in hundreds of tents at Camp McCalla at Guantanamo under the George H.W. Bush administration.
“As a result of these defective procedures, only 28 of the approximately 23,000 Haitians on vessels interdicted by the Coast Guard from the inception of the interdiction program in 1981 until mid-1991 were identified by INS officials as potential asylees,” Stotzky writes.
During Aristide’s eight months in office in 1991 (Feb to Sep), there was a net human influx back to Haiti, as thousands of joyful expatriate Haitians returned to their homeland to take part in a new democratic experiment after three decades of dictatorship.
But the 1991 military coup cruelly cut short that hope-filled period and provoked a new refugee wave which overwhelmed the U.S. Coast Guard ships stationed off Haiti’s coast. As a result, the Coast Guard began transporting Haitians to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, housing them in giant hangars and Camp McCalla, a makeshift city of hundreds of tents set up on Guantanamo’s paved runways and loading docks. At its peak, there were over 12,500 Haitians detained there.
After eight months, the Bush I administration finally dropped all pretense of giving Haitians any due process and discarded the Reagan-era screening protocols, as imperfect as they were. “On May 24, 1992, claiming there were too many Haitians coming, Bush ordered the Coast Guard to intercept all Haitians fleeing in boats and immediately return them to Haiti, without interviews to determine if they were at risk of persecution or death,” Stotzky explained to Haïti Liberté.
Haitians at Guantanamo’s Camp McCalla on Dec. 31, 1991, three months after the coup d’état which ousted Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Credit: Carol Halebian
Beginning in 1991, “when the U.S. detained Haitian refugees indefinitely, it set a precedent,” concluded Prof. A. Naomi Paik in a comprehensive article last June about Haitians at Guantanamo on the website The Conversation.
This was the beginning of Guantanamo being used as a prison, for which it would become even more famous in the early 2000s after it was used to hold, in legal limbo, prisoners swept up in George W. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Guantanamo’s HIV Prison, Camp Bulkeley
Perhaps the least kind and gentle feature of the senior Bush’s internment of Haitian refugees was Camp Bulkeley, a God-forsaken collection of sun-baked buildings where close to 300 possibly HIV-positive Haitians were held until June 1993. U.S. Judge Sterling Johnson, who ruled in favor of allowing the refugees to finally come to the U.S., said that Camp Bulkeley was “nothing more than an HIV prison camp.”
These Haitians had been found to have plausible claims for political asylum, but they were barred from entering the U.S. because of their HIV status. Hundreds of children were interned in the larger Camp McCalla, and at least 25 children went through Camp Bulkeley.
George H.W. Bush’s Attorney General William Barr presided over what has been called “the world’s first HIV detention camp.” Today, not ironically, President Donald Trump has nominated Barr to be Attorney General once again.
On Dec. 10, CBS News ran an article on Barr’s role in overseeing the first use of Guantanamo as a prison camp. Although an immigrant rights leader called the way Haitian refugees were treated “a stain on United States history,” Barr defended his policies at Guantanamo as late as 2001…
unnecessary news from earth 